Chapter One: The Serve

1.1
The best place to begin is at Jim Munroe's indie resource website, No Media Kings. NMK is regularly updated with info on Jim's latest video, zine and book projects, interviews with inspiring creators from all media, and reviews of interesting festivals, contests and projects. There is also a tremendous archive of articles on important topics such as grant writing, getting press coverage and indie distribution, as well as some handy tutorials for at-home projects like book making, video production and screen printing. NMK is the hi-fi version of this paltry list.

1.2
Another important introductory stop is at Broken Pencil. BP is one of the staple magazines for review of new zines, comics, books, videos and music. Pick up a copy of BP at any self respecting neighbourhood bookstore (Pages always has copies) and check out their online version.

For more news and reviews, check out The Cultural Gutter.
Some hot trash-talking there!

1.3
Once you have a sense for what kind of projects are being made by other folks, go check them out in person at any of these fine small press festivals and local art projects. I have tried to list these in order as they happen yearly from September to August. Each linky website has info on how to get a table or submit a proposal if the project interests you:

Word On The Street (September in Toronto, Halifax, Calgary, Kitchener and Vancouver)
Canzine (October -- put on by Broken Pencil, also multi-city)
Toronto Small Press Book Fair (Twice Yearly in Sept/Oct and May/June)
Expozine (November in Montreal. Also has a great series of awards for best-ofs in lots of categories)
The Ocad BookArts Fair (November)
Wayzgoose (last Saturday in April in Grimsby ON)
Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art, MoCCA in New York(June)
The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, TOAE (First weekend in July)
The Toronto Comics Arts Festival, TCAF (Every other year, dates vary)
Alley Jaunt (Seceond weekend in August)

There are any number of evolving small press affairs to keep an eye out for in addition to these main programmes. Cut N Paste, The Anarchist Book Fair, CBBAG Book Arts Fair, Ottawa Small Press Fair, Hamilton Independent Books Festival, Brampton Indie Arts Fest... In fact, every small hamlet of the GTA offers small press fests and craft shows galore, since wherever people gather, an indie community tends to sprout. If you like aging hippies, tie dyed sound poetry and open mic bonanzas, spread your GTA wings and fly.

1.4
The fourth prong in getting your indie bearings is visiting local retailers who promote and sell the kind of work you like. Most of these places also carry books and multiples on consignment if you ask them nicely. If you live in Toronto check out:

The Beguiling (best place for art and alt comics in the Universe!)
Pages Books & Magazines (Pages also hosts This Is Not a Reading Series)
Magic Pony (toys, books and comics)
The Silver Snail (coooomics)
Art Metropole (high end art mulitples)
She Said Boom!
This Ain't The Rosedale Library (483 Church Street)
Babel Books
The Monkey's Paw

Chapter Two: The Lob

2.1
Not to be over estimated is the importance of signing up on lists
that deliver information on local, sometimes indie events right to your inbox.

Instant Coffee sends a list of often indie events, calls for submission, and job postings about once a week. The emails are formatted conveniently with an index at the beginning. You can scroll down to items that catch your fancy to find out more. You can list your own event with Instant Coffee for free!

Akimbo sends two kinds of messages-- Akimbits is a mini list of invites, calls and job postings local to your city (available for many cities) and comes once a week. They also send about 4 or 5 emails a day dedicated to individual projects and calls. Easy to edit as they come in since the subject line clearly tells you what's inside. If stained glass or ceramics workshops ain't your thing, just hit delete before opening. Listing your own event or call with Akimbo costs money.

Chapter Three: The Drive

3.1
If you like making stuff as much as you like looking at other people's stuff, get it out there. Get a table or submit a proposal to some of the festivals and fairs listed in Chapter One.

3.2
Next, get involved in community spaces, artist run centres and indie initiatives that interest you or offer you more expertise than you have.

For ZINES:
Visit the Toronto Zine Library on a Sunday afternoon at the Tranzac Club,
or stop by the Toronto Public Library's Zine Collection on the fourth floor
of the Reference Library.

While you're there, ask about George Walker's Altered Books Project.

Halifax has their own version of the TZL, The Anchor Archive which also offers cute residencies each year. Live in their backyard shack and make zines for a month. They also distribute Zines and have a link with Boston's zine distro,
Learning to Leave a Paper Trail.

Attend the Toronto Comic Jam on the last Tuesday of every month in the backroom at The Cameron House.

For PRINT MEDIA:
Open Studio is a great introduction to all manner of traditional and fine-art print media. They offer courses and have great work in their three galleries year round.

Popfuel is a newish community studio space for screen printers and offers classes and cheap yearly membership.

C1 Art Space also has good intro level classes in screen and other media. Good kids classes too! And a great place to approach about carrying your art multiples on consignment.

For BOOKART:
CBBAG (pronounced "cabbage") is the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artist's Guild. They keep all the important book art lingo, expertise and traditions alive, offer great classes and host some interesting events.

KOZO Studio is a papermaking, bookbinding and letterpress space run by artist Akemi Nishidera. She is only open by appointment or chance at the moment but offers great courses in papermaking and letterpress. She also hosts Bind n Blab on the last Thursday of every month-- like Stitch n Bitch but for bookbinders.

Trip Print Press is extra lovely. Grimy wonderfulness and lots of great links to letterpress resources.

3.3
Submit your work to some of these fine indie and indie-ish publications. But subscribe to the publications first, get familiar with their content and mandate and read their submissions guidelines carefully before sending them all your unsolicited slacker crap:

Kiss Machine (my favourite indie love child)
Matrix (Montreal)
Carousel (Guelph)
Shameless (for girls who get it)
Spacing (issues related to public space)

3.4
Propose installations to promote new projects in some of these book-loving and indie friendly alternative exhibition spaces:

Type Books is a newish bookstore at 883 Queen West (beside the Paper Place) and has a gallery in the basement that shows book related work.

Pages Books and Magazines has a lovely little art window where you can install and promote new projects that are for sale inside the bookstore.

She Said Boom! also has a most comely store front window space for art installations and promo.

This Ain't the Rosedale Library has a gallery upstairs.

Magic Pony has a huge mother gallery in the back which might show work by invitation only?

MADE at 867 Dundas West has two beautiful gallery spaces-- one in an old meat locker at the back of the store and one outside on their back patio. They sell really lovely work by local designers too.

3.5
Ask the friendly neighbourhood indie retailers listed in Chapter One to carry your books and multiples on consignment.

5.2
Visit these specialty retailers:
Retail Bag Company (430 Adelaide West) sells all manner of pretty packages from bags and boxes to take-out cartons and pastry bags. Sparkly things and tag too.
G&S Dye and Accessories (250 Dundas West) sells everything related to screen printing and provides a superior alternative to Speedball crap.
The Paper Place (887 Queen West) carries so many pretty papers and bookmaking accoutrements you can hardly breathe.
The Papertrail Handmade Paper and Book Arts in Waterloo can also induce drool.
Grassroots Environmental Products also sells amazing post-consumer recycled paper.
Three Cent Copy Centre at Brunswick and Bloor is the best kept photcopy secret.
Toronto Stamp makes cool rubber stamps from your own designs.
Lunar Caustic Press foil stamps! (among other things)
Van Huizen Bookbinding and Finishing Ltd (St Catherines) binds and finishes books using many kinds of traditional approaches.
Midtown Reproductions can make huge acetate and velum copies.

5.3
Get some wholesale and warehouse love at:
The Japanese Paper Place
Accuscreen Supplies Ltd (screen printing stuff, 5250 FINCH AVE. EAST)
Applied Stretch Technology (more screen stuff, 1145 BELLAMY RD. N., UNIT 19, SCARBOROUGH)
Designer Fabrics